"Things We Lock Away"

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Last week, Zoe Graystone was almost nowhere to be found; this week, there are Zoes everywhere you turn. In V-World, there's Deathwalker Zoe, mixing it up with the cast of The Warriors in a junkyard swordfight. In flashbacks we meet Little Zoe, who may have a stronger connection to the Cylons than we realized. And in both realities, there is yet another incarnation of our smoky-voiced heroine, who, for lack of better understanding at the moment, we'll call Angel Zoe.

Let's start with the deathwalker, who finally meets up with her opposite number in Tamara, who greets her with several shotgun blasts to the chest. No big deal, since neither of them can be killed, but apparently it does sting a bit. Zoe seems a little surprised to learn that Tamara still holds a grudge against her for that whole "blowing her and her mother up on the train" business. Of course, this Zoe is not that Zoe, who wasn't responsible for the bombing anyway, but Tamara isn't hearing any of that - and neither are the avatars of all the other people whose loved ones were killed in the attack, all of whom converge on Zoe and beat the crap out of her.

Wounded, Zoe flashes back to the fire that nearly killed her as a child, and remembers some new things (at least, new to us) as well: drawings she'd made of suspiciously Cylon-looking robots, years before the creation of U-87...and visitations from an older version of herself, dressed all in white. A Starbuck-style angel, or more of a "Head Six" manifestation? (And is there a difference? I confess I misplaced my copy of The Metaphysics of Battlestar Galactica shortly after that series ended.)

Zoe's repressed memory is just one of the the "Things We Lock Away" uncovered in this episode, a welcome step back in the right direction after last week's plodding pit stop. Lacy is locked away in an attic, drugged by the Willow husbands (including Nestor, alive and well after the car bombing), and seemingly trapped in her own private Saw movie until Clarice finally pays her a visit in an attempt to coax out the location of a backup copy of Zoe's resurrection program - which is itself locked away in an infinity-shaped pin Zoe used to wear.

Armed with this information, Clarice pays a visit to Amanda, who has returned home from the cabin o' convalescence. Both women keep their true motives locked away in a conversation ostensibly about keeping the memory of Zoe alive. Clarice suggests that Amanda reclaim Zoe's personal items from the GDD - you know, trinkets like jewelry and infinity-shaped pins that may help her recall warm memories of the departed. Amanda convinces Clarice to invite her to stay at the Willow compound - which is precisely what Agent Duram asked her to do.

Most dramatically, Daniel attempts to lock away (in his mind, at least) any culpability in the destruction of Vergis's career after he is reinstated by the board of directors in a unanimous vote. Being a Tauron, Vergis faces death at the hands of the Ha'la'tha for his failures. In an attempt to convince himself he still has a conscience, Daniel tries to reason with Vergis, businessman to businessman. But Vergis won't let him off the hook: he wants Daniel to feel the responsibility he bears for his competitor's demise by wielding the knife himself. And in the end, Vergis gets his way, tricking Daniel into placing his hands on the weapon and thrusting it into his own heart. Some things, it turns out, can't be locked away at all.

The most important revelation, though, comes courtesy of Angel Zoe, who reminds her counterpart in V-World that she was created before real-world Zoe "went bad" - and at that moment of creation, she became her own individual entity, separate from Original Recipe Zoe and with free will to make her own decisions and create her own path. It will be interesting to see what she does with this information now that she's convinced Tamara (for the moment, anyway) that they have some purpose besides entertaining the masses by not dying.

Stray observations:

• The Adama brothers still aren't doing much besides cleaning up after Daniel's messes, but it looks like this may change next week. I hope so, anyway.

• Well, at least she made a (rather pitiful) escape attempt, but I'm sorry, Lacy: you're still whiny and annoying.

• OK, I know some of you commenters have master's degrees in Ron Moore-ology, so what exactly do you think is going on with these angelic Zoe manifestations?